I had driven by Redeeming Love Faith Fellowship Church many times. Bicycled right by it, too, headed southwest out of Abilene on U.S. Highway 277.

I wondered why a church was located there, on the outskirts of a big city. A church with a bigger name than square footage.

To one side are two houses, then Elmwood Memorial Park.

On the other is an open field.

Redeeming Love stands pretty much alone. An outpost of faith.

I never dreamed I'd ever set foot inside, much less stand on its "porch," where my son and daughter would be dunked in a metal trough serving as a baptistry by a man of God from Smackover, Arkansas.

Funny where the roads in life take you. Out to the plains of West Texas, even.

Recently, David Wells, the pastor of this small church, passed on.

Gone to glory, he'd call it.

Old-time religion

Greg Jaklewicz(Photo: Thomas Metthe)

I remember my first visit to his humble church.

Pastor Wells was a family friend of my in-laws — religiously conservative types, for sure. They did not practice old-time religion — that suggested something else should be practiced today. What was good then — honest-to-God, from-the-Bible teaching — is good enough today and will be good enough tomorrow, they believed.

Give me that old-time religion
It's good enough for me

My first visit was on a Mother's Day, at the request of my mother-in-law. For someone raised Catholic, yet curious and appreciative of other faiths, it was venturing way out of my comfort zone. My wife warned me it would be different. Roll with it, she encouraged me.

I never dreamed Pastor Wells would roll with it, too. His pulpit was on wheels, and he moved about the room that served as the sanctuary. The story goes that his wife saved that pulpit from a closed church at which he preached at Loving, near Graham.

Talk about putting the fear of God in me. Would he wheel my way, lean toward me as if to peer into my soul and speak as if I was a congregation of one? I prayed he would not. Oh, how I prayed he would not.

There were girls standing to the side, waving fabric as they danced.

I was intrigued but also relieved at the end of the service.

Maybe it wasn't my kind of service but when I later contemplated that visit, I came to appreciate Pastor Wells and his small church.

He was earnest and dedicated to his calling as a minister. It's not always a rock star job, as some would want it. It's way more personal.

In these days of mega-churches, with the words of Scripture and hymns shown on screens and tithing by text message, small, metal buildings where the faithful gather and led by the likes of Pastor Wells stand as lone trees in uncertain soil, bent by the winds of change.

You wonder how they survive, but they do.

My last visit was our family baptism in September 2012. It just seemed to be the right thing to do. It certainly made my mother-in-law happy to share a blessed assurance with her grandchildren. Her late husband would've beamed with pride, too.

As the highway traffic passed and anyone looking out a window could see our small group on the porch, our son and daughter were baptized. We hope that day will remain memorable to them because it was so ... fundamental. So sound.

There were few people at Faith Redeemer that day. Pastor Wells was assisted by his wife, and other family members. There was our family, and some others.

But Pastor Wells preached and songs were sung with enthusiasm that suggested victory that Sunday, not defeat.

Preacher, teacher, patriot

When I saw that Pastor Wells had died at 80, I was compelled to share his story.

I did not know he was a veteran, serving both in the Army and Army National Guard.

In his obituary, he was called "handsome, charismatic, confident and full of life."

Amen to at least three of those. I supposed he was handsome, too.

He was saved in 1965 after an "all night occasion of clubbing and drunkenness." Four years later, he was an ordained minister.

His obituary said David Sloan Wells III attended Perkins School of Theology at SMU and Brite School of Divinity at TCU. Neither is a place for country bumpkins, and Pastor Wells was a learned man.

David and Suzie Wells came to Abilene in 1978 — Wells pastored area churches east of Abilene — and Redeeming Love was founded three years later. In a Reporter-News story published 25 years ago, the church had 500 members.

His son, Christian, worked for a time at the Reporter-News in another department. We knew each other enough to say hello and ask how's everyone doing.

Pastor Wells' service was at Texas State Veterans Cemetery at Abilene on Thursday afternoon, a rather nice day for early February. Nine of us paid our final respects. Two in Army dress uniforms presented the flag to Suzie Wells.

David Wells, former Abilene pastor(Photo: Provided photo)

I reflected that Pastor Wells now is yonder. Here's how his arrival may have gone:

Chris told me a story after the service that upon the 2003 death of longtime friend Harold "Hayseed" Stephens, the talented Abilene High and Hardin-Simmons quarterback, his father said that when he got to heaven, he'd ask two questions.

First, "Where's Jesus?" And then, "Where's Hayseed?"

For more than 50 years Pastor Wells had sought that destination, and he's there.

I have enough faith to be sure of it.

"No matter where we went, he was always asking someone, 'Do you know Jesus?”' Chris said at a funeral service held earlier at the church. "He knew from an early age that God had a call on his life and he ran from and fought it as hard as he could. He reached a point where he asked 'How can God use me after all I have done?'

"God finally got him and his mission became to show the world that no one was beyond redemption."

I met this man one other time, at an event at which ol' Hayseed spoke. But Pastor Wells rang true with me. He was not slick, nor quick to pass the plate. He did not rely on gourmet coffee or technology or convenience to draw folks to worship.

Maybe he missed out reaching more people by not preaching in town and supersizing his presentation.

I don't believe he did.

Suzie Wells, his rock for 48 years, has taken over for her husband at Redeeming Love.